


and i'm to blame

by ZekeStrife



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nero deserves a fucking hug, Nightmares, post episode 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 22:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7988758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZekeStrife/pseuds/ZekeStrife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nero dreams, and breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i'm to blame

Nero opens his eyes.

He is warm, cosy- there's a gentle wind blowing across his skin, and blades of grass teasing at his ankles; above him, the crown of leaves block out most of the view of the sky, a blue, cloudless thing.

It's a good day.

Nero yawns, rolls his shoulders- birds are singing, and there's the soft sound of paper beside him.

Nero turns his head, rubs at his eye with the heel of his hand; Frate is sitting beside him, bend over a pad of paper. Strands of hair block most of his face from view, except for the smattering of freckles on his cheek and nose.

Nero grins. “What're you drawing, little brother?” he asks, shifts so he can lean into Frate's space.

Paper crinkles. Frate's hand is clenched on the side of the pad, and the pen in his hand has stilled.

Nero's smile falters.

“Brother,” Frate says, and his voice is odd. “Do you hate me?”

Nero flinches; he opens his mouth, except there's no words at the ready- just shock and surprise, and a weird, tight feeling in his chest.

“What-” he stumbles; pushes himself up, drags his knees into the dirt. “No! Of course not, _fratello_.”

He plants both hands in the grass, leans forward until the front of his shoulder is pressed to Frate's. “Why would you ever thi-”

He loses his voice.

“Why would you kill me, then?” Frate asks, hands white on the pad. 

Nero is not sure what noise he makes- it hurts to make it, but that pain feels distant, unimportant. He can't drag his eyes away from the drawing; the sketchy, almost childish drawing of his brother, a dark spot on his chest.

Of himself, standing there with a gun pointed towards his _little brother_.

Frate turns his head slowly. Nero meets his gaze, can't do anything else.

Frate's face is sunken and pale, dark shadows beneath his eyes. His freckles stand out against his skin, little spots of white- his eyes are phantomless, blacker than the pit, and Nero wishes he could look away.

“You killed me,” Frate says. “You _killed me_!”

He turns, or maybe he was already turned, and then hands grip Nero around the throat, and he's being thrown back- his back breaks against water, and he's rushing downwards, Frate pushing him deeper and deeper.

“You killed me!” he shouts, bubbles parting from his lips, and blood is twisting out into the water. “You killed me!”

Nero flails his hands, tries to grip Frate's wrist- he can't breathe.

Blood is soaked through Frate's shirt.

“You killed me!” 

He hits the bottom- sand twirling up, and Frate's face is twisted and nightmarish, nothing like his dear little brother.

“You killed _us_!”

Hands latch onto him. Hands that aren't Frate's, hands he doesn't know- they cling to him, to his hands and arms and legs and sides, and blood is in his mouth.

“All of us! You killed us all!”

Frate leans down, hands cold and tight, and Nero's vision is going. 

His chest hurts.

“You said you _loved me_ ,” Frate hisses, inches from his face. “And yet you killed me without a _thought_.”

Nero tries- he tries to shake his head, to tell him _no, no I didn't want to_ , but all he can do is drown, is die, is taste the blood in his mouth and-

Wake.

He gasps, chest heaving- his eyes are open, and there is no sky above him, no crown of leaves. Just a ceiling, a ceiling he's painfully familiar with.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, without much thought- he presses his hands to his face, pushes down at his eyes.

His head hurts. His chest is tight and painful, and he can taste blood in his mouth.

His sheets are sticky with sweat, and he kicks the blanket off- the air is heavy and warm, and he can't breathe.

He gets out of bed with a stagger, with a wheeze- his hands are shaking and his head is heavy, and he coughs, stumbles over his own damn feet.

His eyes sting.

There's a glass and a bottle on a counter a few feet away, and he staggers over to it, nearly tripping too many times. Breathing hurts, everything hurts, and all he can think of is Frate.

“ _You killed me_ ,” he had said, and Nero _had_.

He bites down the cry, the sob, and slams a knee into the counter- he fumbles for the bottle of Lawless Heaven, and pours himself a glass, only spilling a few drops.

He slams it back, throat burning and chest still too tight, and he's shaking hard. His breath is rattling.

“It's over,” he hisses at himself, pours another glass. “It happened, and it's over, so _stop_.”

He drinks it in one go, tries to focus on the burn instead of the pain. 

It's not working.

“Fuck it,” he says, leaves the glass on the counter and takes the whole bottle. He staggers back to bed, takes a few swings of Lawless on his way. Tears are stinging at his eyes, and he doesn't know how to make them stop.

If Dad were here, he'd slap him for being such a baby.

Nero drops back down on the bed, slams his back into the wall- the pain, the physical kind, does nothing but rattle his bone, and as quick as it came, it's gone.

He takes another drink.

He feels like he's fourteen again, curled up with Vanno in the back of the car, trying hard not to let his hands shake. 

He's not a newbie. He shouldn't be this  _affected_ , he shouldn't- 

Dad would be so disappointed.

He wheezes out a laugh, takes another swing- Vanno's dead too, and it hits him like a knife to the gut.

He can't muffle the sob this time.

Frate's face. The wide-eyes and the second where it hadn't quite clicked- where it was just them, this little moment, and then-

His shoulders twist, his breath hitches. He bites down, tries so hard to repress it.

The tears come anyway.

It's like he's losing everyone. Vanno, Volpe, Frate- for the first time in a long, long while, his hands feel dirty.

_ He _ feels dirty.

He takes another swallow, keeps it running till he  _has_ to stop- alcohol slips down his chin, stains along his throat, and he's crying.

Frate- his dear little brother, and Nero doesn't  _care_ that he had Volpe killed, not right now. He loved Frate, no matter what, and now Frate was dead by his  _hands_ , and-

The bottle slips from his fingers, falls to the floor- it doesn't shatter, just lands with a dull, heavy,  _thud_ .

Nero raises both hands- presses them both to his face, and he curls into himself; his stomach feels empty, like a huge hole's opened up inside him.

He weeps.

He sobs and he cries and he shakes; he breaks into little pieces, gasping and heaving and muffling laughter into his palms.

Frate's dead.

Frate's dead, and Nero  _killed him_ .

 

**Author's Note:**

> some gratuitous Nero angst, because i love him a lot, and he most definitely does not deserve any of this shit.


End file.
